A Dance With Dragons--This is the fifth novel in George R. R. Martin's mega-epic fantasy series. And it came out a mere six years after the fifth novel! Thank God for Wikipedia and the plot synopsis they provide for the earlier novels. At nearly 1000 pages per book, there was no way I was going to read them all again, even if they were all excellent.
These are the continuing stories of a massive power struggle in the land of Westeros between prominent and warlike noble families. And a scrappy young lady who happens to have dragons. Three of them. Nice to have. Too bad she is an ocean away. Oh, and not to mention those who patrol the Wall, a towering edifice that separates Westeros from the Northern lands. These Northern lands contain wights and other undead critters who may soon cross the Wall and come South into Westeros. So you see there is plenty going on.
These novels and crammed with characters that Martin, amazingly, makes interesting. Almost each one, including the numerous minor characters, has something interesting going on, and they are fully fleshed out and given believable personalities by the author. My personal favorite (as it is for many other readers) is Tyrion, an intelligent, scathing, and sometimes ruthless man who has been shunned by his noble family, the Lannisters, because he was born a dwarf. Despite his small stature he is a strong, pivotal, and fascinating character.
Unfortunately,
A Dance With Dragons, while very good, seems to me to be a "bridge" novel, meaning that all the characters are in flux. They are preparing for major scenes that will, presumably, happen in the next novel. Martin definitely kept me interested and reading, but I was hoping for more.
Hopefully I will find out what happens around 2016 or so, when the next book gets published.
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter--I'll be honest: I saw this book in a discount store at a cheap price, and that's why I bought it. I probably wouldn't have picked it up otherwise.
Still, this book does have an interesting premise. It turns out that America in the 19th Century was loaded with vampires who came over with everyone else from Europe and they had found a home here, especially in the South where slavery was practiced. Whenever a slave got too old or lame to work, the plantation owners would sell them to vampires for food. And of course vampires got involved with politics and were the leading major force for Southern secession in 1861 which led to the American Civil War.
Abe Lincoln, however, has been a vampire hunter long before this. It turns out that his mother was killed by a vampire and he had sworn to kill as many as he could with his trusty axe. Strangely enough, Abe gets his start when he befriends a vampire who wants to help him destroy the "bad" ones and assists him in that endeavor. Once he gets involved in politics and gets elected President he realizes that the vampire menace is not only his personal issue, but the nation's as well.
The book was "okay", but I really can't give it more than that. It is epistolary for much of the narrative (Lincoln's "hidden" journals are constantly referenced), which is not a style of writing that I especially enjoy. Such a style is given to "tell" rather than "show", or at least that is what it seems to me.
I did not read "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies", but I imagine that if you liked that book you may enjoy this one as well.
